If you replace the working parts, you get a different machine (Pre-Asimovian Revolution Liminal)

[powersthatsave]

Who: The New Travellers, the Minor Arcana, and possibly a Major or two
Where: Liminal Space.
When: Pre-Asimovian Revolution Jaunt
What: Omens of what's to come; IC Plotrole signups.
Warnings: None come to mind atypical of Synodiporia Valor.



Liminal is a whirring factory floor, a control deck full of waldoes overlooking assembly lines, with conveyor belts, escalators, and constantly circulating elevators throughout.

The process starts with a machine labeled the ECTOENCABULATOR, which at the direction of Travellers (manipulating the main spurving bearings) squirt a hot goo through a non-reversible tremie pipe into passing base templates of prefamulated amulite. These are then conveyed down a differential girdlespring where the goo is cooled by overhead pentametric fans, before passing them through six hydrocoptic marzlevanes - fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft, to effectively prevent side fumbling, of course - which then deposit the finished products in crates.

Among other things, you could pick up chunky bits of rounded armor one could wear, including laser tag, paintball and NERF guns of various kinds, as well as large cans; the ones marked with an "E" contain Perfectly Nutritious Meals, of typical cafeteria fare (though of high quality), while the ones marked with "W" contain ammunition and batteries for the toy guns.

By walking down the main winding - in a lotus-o-delta configuration - one could place themselves in a panendermic semi-boloid slot so that a state-of-the-art stator could descend to fit your armor.

In the main manufactory floor, parapsychic monitors arrayed around the waldo stations, with various scowling faces, read:

- Doctor Caine, creator of the Maverick Code, conductor of the Robot Underground Railroad
- Delta, a Free Robot terrorist, charismatic and daring
- Six Robot Masters drawn from infrastructure and industry, mad as hell and willing to fight for freedom

- an Intrepid Human Reporter, sympathetic to the Maverick cause
- a Guilty Human Industrialist, who employs thousands of robots in manufacturing
- a Populist Human Politician, who has thrown in their lot with the Mavericks to score votes
- the Human Police Chief, who’s anti-Maverick squad is as brutal as it is unlawful

- Dr. Malion, roboticist, who sees his creations - even his sapient ones - as tools
- Coda, the first Super Fighting Robot, and a Maverick who thinks he can get through to Reprise
- Reprise, the second of Doctor Percival Ignatious Malion’s Super Fighting Robots, idealistic to a fault
- Harmony, a domestic robot and Reprise’s sibling, who demanded combat upgrades to fight alongside them

The lowest level reachable by the pneumatomatic turbolifts lead to the Hotel Leonardo and the other creative spaces, with the paths to them labeled by colored lines across the wall blueshifting up from black to red to orange, to yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, rose, and white.

Comments

I have seen this city a thousand times.

[birdchasingecho]

Mei... Mei is here, and in some ways, Mei is home.

The holoprojectors, the feel of a factory floor for a food vendor, the way in which energy fuels everything, even mass, even burning will...

The faces aren't, but the ideas they represent? Yes, she knows some of them.

She looks, in particular, at Dr. Malion's blurb, and narrows her eyes, but cannot stare in hate forever.

Instead, she turns back to the machine; manipulates it, for a long moment, trying to make adjustments more minute than, perhaps, she's able to; her hands work deftly, but slowly.

And what descends, at last, from the Ectoencabulator... Is a compound bow, made of spring steel and designed to load the nerf shot. And yet, as she draws it, she winces slightly, worried it will bite her...

Until it doesn't, and she relaxes it. She rolls her shoulders. They've gotten stiff over the past few days, as she's had to slow her roll on learning. These things... Take time.

This is another such step. "... how do I load this...?" She wonders, aloud.

[bisexualcoded]

"Perhaps I could be of assistance, mademoiselle?"

The man who says this is on the shorter side, for a modern man, with dark wavy hair in a ponytail, dark robes, and a mantle of dark green over a black arming jacket and trousers. The tabard over it is green, and marked with the device of a thorny rose lined in a thick gold outline. He smiles, warmly, broadly.

"A fine bow. Ah, and unusual arrows, I see. You must be both quite strong and deft of eye and hand to employ such a thing."

[birdchasingecho]

"It's been a long time since I had a bow at all. Even given I can toss around what I want, my shoulders need to relearn how strong they are." And yet, her breath is slow, calm, a little guarded. "Still, not a bad design, though I'm still worried 'bout the pulleys, and I can't find the hopper for the shot..."

She turns and--

Well. Someone about her size. That's been unusual, lately, at least among humans. The tabard and devices... She blinks. They're entirely unfamiliar to her. "Ah-- but I shouldn't grumble, right? I'm just glad I'm able t'hold one at all, now."

[mouthwordplay]

Unakite is walking on the outside of the elevator cage, ambling vertically with no especial place to be besides showing off for the new Travelers. The sooner they realize that gravity isn't the boss of anyone--but especially not her--the better.

Mom says that the Majors used to use the liminal spaces to communicate with us because they weren't good with words. Like not just mouth words, which is understandable, but even brain words.

She's just casually putting that out on the network for anyone to reply to. It's her native form of communication, after all, just like all the kids born in Liminal Space.

[travellingtogether]

Because they are, or once were, alien to us, replies the crisp and cold voice of a scholar and specialist. Egregores, concepts reified. Or so the files on them back at base would claim. Understanding that we were distinct personalities - made of meat, as per the author - was a recent development.

[mouthwordplay]

Yeah, I know, Una replies. Mom wrote a whole study on them. What's an egregore?

[birdchasingecho]

A voice a little bit like an old radio without static cancellation-- or like there's some really dense particles in the way of a transmission-- adds, seems they're still doin' it.

[mouthwordplay]

I don't think it's the Majors. I think it's the parents and other Minors, because it's kind of traditional now. It's dead easy to dump ideas into liminal space, you know. I could while I was still a pebble.

[failed_arcana_check]

Madeline Carter was, at first, confused when the place had shifted. The Hotel Leonardo was... Relatively familiar, but the entire rest of the space had shifted into... Uh.

"This is. A vision of the future?", she said. "... I'm trying to come up with a joke about the Ford Motor Company but..."

She started to move around. To try and very, very quickly fail to understand the machines at work. To look at the items in the crates. Cans of 'E' and 'W', armor of a style she had never seen anything quite like...

And then, she looked at the monitors.

"A pleasant-looking bunch," she said... Even as she almost reflexively touched one - the monitor for Reprise. A creation, idealistic to a fault...

This one called out to her. But were they the enemy, or...

She shuddered. What path did she take for this mission? She had to commit, but which path was right?

One of the 'E' tanks has some water. She starts to drink, trying to think.

Someone should probably nudge her to take some of the Nerf gear.

[travellingtogether]

A nerf dart sails through the air, the sucker striking Madeline right between the eyes and sticking harmlessly.

"Call that a lucky shot?" says a bright and cheerful soprano voice.

It belongs to... well, to a cartoon cat made solid and real in three dimensional space. Blond fur, dark skin, bright pink eyes. Wearing a jacket and tanktop, pants and very large and chunky shoes, with a very elaborate green jade bracelet shifting shape on her left arm.

She is armed with a pair of bright green toy guns, the tips a bright and cheerful orange to indicate they're mostly harmless, a heavy pistol with a large magazine of foam darts with rubber suction cups.

"Hey, you're new here, right? Not on the last Jaunt like Bolt and I were?" she asks, her smile soft, her eyes kind but determined.

[failed_arcana_check]

... How had she missed someone pulling a gun on her, even if a toy?!

Maddy looked a bit concerned at that, even as she turned toward the cat-like figure.

"... Y-yeah. Madeline Carter, United States Secret Service. Much as that matters here."

Notably, she does not go for her very not Nerf weapons.

"... Is the, uh, toy equipment here for a reason?"

[okanetendo]

There is, quite suddenly, a voice in everyone's heads, along with a projected mental image of a woman looking in a mirror.

Mousy brown hair in a bob cut with bangs. Tasteful jewelery, on top of a Chinese-inspired outfit. A long red staff with gold stamps on each side - literally, stamps, like the chops used in Far Eastern countries instead of signet rings or signatures to sign documents. In her other hand is a spread of what appear at first glance to be 10,000 yen banknotes, but on closer inspection the writing on them is calligraphy, writing bibliomantic spells of binding and banishment; ofuda talismans with a peculiar shape.

Attention, Travelers. This is the Page of Discs, AKA Madame Johnson, AKA The Adversary of Bargains, your Captain of this particular liminal joyride with a little help from the fine engineers from Wands, particularly their Page - who you've met - their Ace, and the Eight and Banner thereof. Love you all.

As you may have guessed, the Asimovian Revolution took it. And that means I need to give you a warning. Every role on Chiron was - arguably - human. That's no longer a given here. Some of you will be booting up in a robotic body, and I don't just mean the Infiltrators.

Don't panic. Even if you don't come back as you are, you'll be able to turn back, and with practice, turn forth, as well. Being a robot has it's advantages. Or a pixie, or a vampire, or a living gemstone. Think of it one of the little perks of Travelling. Of course, they have their disadvantages as well - the Page and the Ace of Wands brand of vampirism doesn't involve sparkling in the -

Hang on, wait, seriously, the Ace of Wands does...? Holy shit. My point about how being in sunlight as a vampire is a great way to end of floored still stands, though. But we've lost the thread.

Anyway, my point is: you can pick up other forms, and they're useful. My Adversary form is kind of half and half, it's really a magical girl thing, but I might show off my drow form and my chromed-up ork form too later. Remember, you will always be you, at the end of it, whatever part of 'you' is most important.

This has been the Page of Discs, Signing off. Opening the floor to questions; I can't answer all of them but I'll answer what I can.

[mouthwordplay]

Hey Auntie, why Madame Johnson?

[okanetendo]

It's polite, even when you know who you're dealing with, to call a corpo cutout in one particular cyberpunk hellscape we've jaunted to "Mister Johnson." Adjusted for gender, anyway. Unlike some folk I can name, I'm quite happy as Madame.

So when we were discussing infosec handles - we need multiple of them for mystical bullshit reasons - Madame Johnson leapt immediately to mind.

[failed_arcana_check]

Okay, gotta try this telepathic talk thing...

... So, wait, what kinda robots we talking? I've, uh, encountered some attempts in my day so...

[okanetendo]

Fully realized sapient general artificial intelligences bound to a single electromechanical body, the Page of Discs replies. Or, in less scientific terms: people made of metal and wires and self-directed by the programmed codes of their electronic computer processing chips.

Pros: don’t need to eat, sleep, or breathe, generally very strong, may have built in weapons, definitely have built in utility tools and abilities. Cons: need to recharge internal batteries with electrical power, use reprogrammable code to think, usually have vulnerabilities to shock and electromagnetic interference, may have vulnerabilities to elemental bullshit and/or faildeadly killswitches.

[birdchasingecho]

A Johnson, huh? comes the staticky voice of what, over the past few days, has regularly turned out to be Mei. Fair enough. ... how much restrictions will remain in robot form?

Private; Psychic Protection II

[okanetendo]

oh, I much prefer being a Runner, but sometimes I infiltrate as a corpro type.

The bad news is: most of them, and maybe an Asimov Code as well: can’t kill humans or allow humans to be killed, can’t hurt humans or allow humans to be hurt, modulo if not doing so would kill a human; keep yourself safe and working, modulo your safety costing a human life or limb.

Good news: most of those those restrictions become potentially re-writable code. I don’t recommend deleting “can’t talk shit” in case it breaks something else, but you can find a decent hacker and get creative.

[mazingetteryuki]

Ooo! Robots! Neat~! I wonder how this is gonna end up workin' out? I've always wondered how it'd feel to actually be in a new body and stuff!,

[okanetendo]

If you're Investigating, you'll just wake up with a shiny metal butt and have to work it out, but they SHOULD have some internal diagnostics to help you figure out what you're capable of. And then you learn the muscles to change form once you're back.

If you're Infiltrating, of course, it should be as natural as breathing was.

[not_a_weapon_not_a_boy]

Okay, maybe being a robot has its advantages, but right now all I can think of is that'll aggravate the hell out of my dsyphoria, the implants I've got now are bad enough as it is. Is there any way we can skip that, or get back to our usual selves a bit faster?

[travellingtogether]

People keep throwing that word at me for my cursed form - what does “dysphoria” even freakin mean?

Uh, hi, my name’s Junko, I’m a martial artist and into cooking and making plushies, and uh… if you see a tall redhead dude in a blue tangzhuang, that’s. Also me. Just throwing that out there in case some idiot wants to pull a Yuuka, and thank god the Pink Carnation and her naginata aren’t here.

[not_a_weapon_not_a_boy]

Charlie spends a long while staring at the armor stators before, after glancing around to see if she's alone, she slips off her hoodie, revealing a tank-top and an assortment of implants, steps into the slot to see what the armor the ectoencabulator applies.

Once it's done, she looks at the chunky rounded padding for a bit before forcibly tearing it off and pulling her hoodie back on with a shudder.

[travellingtogether]

“Glamours here suck ass, huh?”

The voice saying this is three liters of vicious infighting in a one liter bottle.

A 4’0 and a raven-feathered black haired, black glad goth with gold and chrome beetle wings grins up at Dynamis, spinning a perfectly weighted subtly curved throwing knife between her fingers. Her eyes are very dark anime proportioned ones.

“So what, you some kind of combat bioroid?”

[travellingtogether]

And here comes a familiar face.

"...shouldn't be too surprised you jumped at the call too," Minjun Pak - better known as Idol - says. "The robot suit's not your style, then? Nice to see a familiar face."

They brush a strand of hair out of their eyes and laughs. "Seriously. For all I volunteered, this place is weird, and I don't know anyone. Who was your recruiter? I got a Japanese guy, tallish, glasses, grey hair. Cute as it goes."